


floor two

by falloutmars



Category: Riverdale (TV 2017)
Genre: Alternate Universe, F/M, Fluff, Kissing, Light Angst, Strangers to Lovers, Trapped In Elevator, they work in the same office block in nyc
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-01-15
Updated: 2020-01-15
Packaged: 2021-02-19 05:06:55
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,945
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/22272289
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/falloutmars/pseuds/falloutmars
Summary: Getting trapped in an elevator with a handsome stranger was not on the top of Betty's to-do list, but some things have a way of working out.
Relationships: Betty Cooper & Jughead Jones, Betty Cooper/Jughead Jones
Comments: 16
Kudos: 82





	floor two

**Author's Note:**

> hi! this is based on a writing exercise prompt that was meant to be 500 words but, uh, it got a bit out of hand. oops. anyway, i hope you enjoy this!

Betty hates stairs. She knows she probably should walk up to floor two where her office is while she still can, but to be quite honest, she cannot be bothered. So when she gets stuck in the elevator with a rather handsome stranger, she only has herself to blame.

“Fuck,” she mutters to herself when she hears the maintenance person tell them through the speaker that there’s a forty-five minute to one hour wait for assistance. She could _really_ do without this today.

The man beside her sighs, obviously feeling the same frustration as her. He runs his hand through his hair, and Betty watches as his unusually shaped beanie falls off. With another sigh, he leans down to pick it up and shoves it in the back pocket of his jeans. At this, she accidentally lets a giggle slip out, attracting the attention of the man. 

“You okay?” she asks hesitantly, attempting to divert his thoughts from her giggling. Feeling slightly embarrassed, she looks down as she fiddles with her lanyard, ensuring she avoids the eyes of the man beside her. 

He lets out a breathy laugh. “Yeah, sorry. Just going to miss a meeting now and I’m trying to work out how to tell my boss that I got stuck in the elevator to floor two without him being mad.”

Betty chuckles, feeling _slightly_ less embarrassed. “Well, if it’s any consolation, that’s where I’m heading too.” 

He doesn’t say anything in reply, just giving her a small - but _cute,_ she notices - smile before a slightly awkward silence falls over them. A moment or so later, he grabs his phone out of his suit jacket pocket, mumbling a _do you mind if I…?_ to Betty. Of course, she nods politely, getting her own phone out of her pocket too, figuring she should email her boss. Leaning against the wall of the elevator, she composes an email, explaining the situation and apologizing excessively. Meanwhile, on the other side of the small elevator, the man is fiddling with his own phone, moving it from his ear to giving it a frustrated look. 

After composing an email that Betty deems to be polite enough, she presses send. Instead of the _sent_ pop-up she expected to see, Betty is greeted with a _cannot connect to mailbox_ one, and that’s when she realizes that there is no service. At the same time, she hears the man spit out an annoyed sounding _shit_.

She looks up from her phone. “No service either, huh?” She attempts to lighten the mood, sending him a slightly amused look, but ultimately, her acting skills aren’t great so it falls flat. 

“Sorry, yeah, nothing here,” he sighs, pocketing his phone. “Looks like it’s just me and you…” He frowns, and she thinks he must’ve just realized that he doesn’t know her name. 

“Betty Smith.” She grins, holding out her hand. He shakes it and Betty can’t help but notice how soft his hand is, cursing herself in the process. 

“I’m Jughead Jones,” he says, letting go of her hand after what could be said to be too long. A look of shock spreads over his face and Betty thinks it could be because she didn’t laugh or even react when he told her his name. 

Instead, she puts on her best previously-Cooper charm. “So, Jughead, if we’re stuck here for at least the next forty minutes, why don’t you tell me a bit about yourself?” She smiles, sitting down on the elevator floor. Jughead gives her a weird look, so she simply shrugs, saying, “We’ve got a while to kill and these heels are not made for standing.”

He giggles, plonking himself next to her. “Okay, well, I work for the online publication company on floor two as a food journalist. I do anything from restaurant reviews to write-ups of shows, like the Great British Bake Off. It’s basically my dream job as I love food and I love writing, but honestly, I have no idea how I got here.” He chuckles again, and Betty senses it’s more nerves than anything else. She finds herself wondering why he’d be nervous around her and if it’s for the same reason she’s feeling slightly nervous too. 

“Why’s that?” she asks without really thinking. Looking over at him, she hopes her face conveys her genuine interest rather than potentially rude forwardness. 

He breaks their eye contact, looking down, and starts fiddling with the button on his jacket sleeve. “I grew up upstate in a small town called Riverdale,” he says in a small voice. “I lived in a trailer park with my alcoholic father, my bitch of a mother - and that’s being nice - and my baby sister. That is until my mother walked out and left with my sister. I haven’t seen her since. That was almost 10 years ago.” He pauses, taking a deep breath. “I don’t know why I’m telling you all this.” He looks over at her, sadness filling his eyes. 

Her heart breaks for him, so she takes a moment to compose herself before speaking again. “I asked. I’m sorry, I shouldn’t have,” she says, sending him a sympathetic smile. He’s quick to dismiss her apology, so she pushes those thoughts to the back of her mind and tries again to lighten the mood. “I think this elevator is doing strange things to the both of us. Maybe we’re in an alternate timeline or something.”

He chuckles sadly. “Yeah,” is all he says in reply, and Betty is quick to feel bad once more. The silence around them is awkward. She glances at her watch, realizing that they’re only been stuck here for fifteen minutes, cursing herself even more. 

Just when she’s debating whether or not to drain her phone battery by playing shitty games, Jughead begins speaking again.

“I was homeless for a while in high school. My best friend’s dad took me in, but social services wouldn’t let me stay there permanently when my dad got arrested.” He pauses, staring straight ahead. One of his hands rests in the gap between them and Betty resists the urge to place hers atop his as a way of comfort and reassurance. Luckily, he doesn’t notice her slight twitch, and continues talking. “Long story short, I ended up joining a gang - mainly for somewhere to stay, but also for a family. My father had led the gang up until he got arrested, so it made sense to me at the time. Turns out, angry 16 year old me can’t make good decisions.” He lets out a bitter laugh, even just the memory upsetting him. 

Jughead doesn’t say anything after that. Betty, after taking a moment to digest what he just told her, finally thinks she can find the right words.

“I’m not going to… apologize, tell you how awful that must’ve been,” she begins, hesitantly glancing over at Jughead, who sends her a reassuring smile. “Because I’m sure you’ve heard that dozens of times before. Hell, I sure have. But I am going to say that, Jughead, I’ve known you for barely half an hour and I can _tell_ that you deserve to be here today in this job. By the sounds of things, you’ve worked your ass off to get here - and you deserve it.”

_Wow, Betty, where did that come from?_ she thinks to herself. 

She’s nervous to look at Jughead after she just said all of that to him. He’s a stranger! She’s probably made herself look stupid and is now going to have to spend another half an hour longer with him in awkward silence and then ensure she can avoid him at all costs during her working hours in this building. But she plucks up the courage to move her eyes across to him and she realizes that she never had any reason to. He’s staring at her with a glint in his eye, and a genuine, affection-filled smile spread across his face. It makes her heart flutter with _something_ she isn’t sure she can admit just yet. 

“I-” he tries, visibly swallowing. “That’s quite possibly the nicest thing anyone has ever said to me.” His voice is full of shock and he looks directly into her eyes. She feels like he can see right into her soul, the moment filled with intensity and intimacy. 

Attempting to shake herself out of the moment, she sends him a weak smile, choosing against replying with words out of fear of embarrassing herself. She finds them sitting in silence once again. It’s not awkward, per se, but it feels as if something has shifted between them. Doing what she does best, Betty begins to overthink the whole situation. She’s surprised that Jughead can’t hear the cogs of her brain working, but then she glances over at him and he seems equally as lost in thought at her. She goes back to her own world in her mind, hoping that the maintenance worker will show up soon and help them escape what feels like a weird alternate reality. 

_It will be over soon,_ she tells herself. _It’s just this stupid elevator._

(In a way, she hopes she’s wrong.)

A few minutes later - although it feels like hours - and almost thirty minutes spent in the elevator, Jughead interrupts the silence. “You can tell me to _fuck off_ if I’m speaking out of turn, but… What did you mean when you said that you’ve heard it before? The bullshit apologies, I mean.”

She sighs, defeated. _This damn elevator_. “My father - he’s also in prison. If you’ve ever read any New York news - and I’m guessing you have -” Her joke earns her a small laugh and a nod she can only see out of the corner of her eye. “You’ve probably heard about him.” She stops, rubbing her face roughly with the palms of her hands. 

Jughead interrupts her, his hand finding its way to her shoulder. “Betty, it’s okay. You don’t have to tell me.”

She almost shivers under his touch. “I want to,” she swallows. “My father is the Black Hood serial killer. He killed my best friend, my sister, tried to kill my mother and I. He killed 5 people before I caught him.”

Jughead blinks, his confusion morphing into shock. “Hal… Cooper?”

“Yes. I changed my name - Smith is my mom’s maiden name - so no one knows who I am apart from her and now, you. I’d appreciate it if you kept it that way.” Betty’s nerves take over, and she knows she sounds more harsh now, less polite. She looks over at Jughead to gauge his reaction, and she notices that his eyes are almost stuck on her, hand still firmly planted on her shoulder. 

He’s quick to reassure her. “Of course, don’t worry, I won’t tell anyone.” 

“Thank you,” she smiles, placing her own hand over his on her shoulder. He practically snatches it away, as if he hadn’t realized it was still there, and Betty feels the loss more than she should. His eyes are still fixed on her, like he’s trying to figure something out to say to her. Instead, she fills the silence. “Hopefully not too long left in here, huh?”

It doesn’t make Jughead laugh, or even smile, and Betty worries that she’s done something wrong. She decides to look away, give him a moment, so she pulls her phone out of her pocket and mindlessly scrolls through her photo gallery, not sure she could concentrate on a game right now. 

The atmosphere between them has shifted, feeling raw, emotional, like there’s something unsaid. Betty’s head won’t stop whirling with thoughts and concerns, and she wonders why she’s so worried about what Jughead thinks about her. She convinces herself that it’s the elevator, it’s the strange, unusual situation of being stuck in an elevator with a stranger. A stranger that somehow now knows more about her than anyone else she’s met in the past 5 years. A stranger who somehow feels like an old friend, an old friend who perhaps in another life could’ve been something more. Or maybe even this one. 

Eventually, Betty manages to snap out of her thoughts. She looks over at Jughead, who has stopped looking at her. He must notice her looking at him, though, as he lets out a sad sigh before speaking. “I’m sorry, Betty,” he whispers. “I cannot think of anything else, so the least I can say is another bullshit apology.” 

“It’s okay,” she says softly. Because it is, it really is. She’s finally at the point in her life where she _means_ it. “It really is okay. _I’m_ okay now. But to be honest, I’m not sure why I told you. Guess we’re even now.”

“Yeah.” He forces out a smile. “I’m glad to hear that you’re okay now. I… I remember reading about it as it was happening. You must be so strong, Betty.”

“Not so much then. But I’m here now, we both are, and that’s all that matters.”

He takes a deep breath. “Someone once told me that we are not our parents, and we are not our families. Despite everything that’s happened with them, despite biology, despite _everything_ , we are not their actions and we have the power to change and write our own futures. You are living proof of that, Betty.”

Betty feels her eyes begin to fill with tears. “Jughead…” she murmurs. “You are, too.” 

He replies with a heartfelt smile, and a slight blush that spreads across his face. Betty smiles back, carefully wiping away the couple of tears that escaped. For a moment, the pair of them are simply smiling at each other as if nothing else matters. To anyone else, they must look strange. Two grown adults, both in smart work clothes, sitting on the floor of an elevator, grinning like idiots. But in that moment, neither of them care. 

Suddenly, a voice starts speaking to them. It takes Betty a few seconds to work out that it’s coming from the speaker and it’s the same person from the maintenance company that they spoke to before. 

“The repair team are on their way, and should be with you in the next ten minutes. Then, you’ll hear a bit of noise, but it shouldn’t take too long to get you out of there. Sorry about this.”

Ten more minutes. Betty feels a strange pang of disappointment at that. At first, she couldn’t wait to get the hell out of the damn elevator, but now, after spending this time talking and getting to know Jughead, she doesn’t really want to let go of the moment. She feels like they’re experiencing some kind of different reality, where nothing feels either right or wrong. It’s allowed her to tell him things she’d never thought of telling anyone, things that she can’t take back. She finds herself not wanting to change how the day’s gone so far, even when she does most days. There’s something about Jughead, something about his presence paired with the oddity of the situation, that has drawn her to him. She begins to think she may have a tough time shaking this pull. 

“So, not long left then, eh?” Jughead says, breaking her out of this trance. “Almost time to face those bosses of ours.”

She blinks rapidly, trying to rid those thoughts. “Uh, yeah, guess so.”

“Now we’ve shared our deepest, darkest secrets, let me ask you one thing.” She nods, slightly confused, but he continues. “Who are _you_? Not your family, not your past, just Betty Smith. Tell me a bit about _her_.”

She finds herself smiling at something Jughead has said again. He has such a way with words, it’s no wonder he’s a writer. “I’m 23 years old and… Honestly, there isn’t much to know about me that doesn’t relate to my family or past in some way.” She frowns, sadness rising up inside of her. 

“Let's start with the easy stuff. What do you do? I mean, I know you work here on floor two but what’s your job? Do you enjoy it?”

“Even that relates to my past,” she says with a sigh. “But… yeah, I love my job. I work as an investigative journalist for the Post. I’ve always enjoyed investigating, so when everything happened with the Black Hood right on my doorstep, I was all over it. Obviously, I didn’t expect things to turn out like they did, but somehow that didn’t put me off. I graduated from NYU and got the job here. Showed me that some things do work out.”

“Wow, that’s amazing, Betty. I’m really glad this worked out for you.”

“Thank you,” she whispers back. 

Jughead fills the final ten minutes in the elevator with asking Betty questions about herself. Some of them he’s answered already, but others she shoots right back at him, giving in to the opportunity to get to know him even more. 

The minutes pass quicker than Betty hopes for, their quiet conversation being disrupted with noises of the elevator repairs. Being unable to hear each other, they resort to making faces and making each other laugh. It’s a pure moment, one that fills Betty with a feeling of affection. She is surprised that a bad situation like this could lead to such nice moments.

Just over an hour after getting stuck in the elevator, Betty and Jughead are finally freed by the repair team. They’re met with profuse apologies that they both are quick to dismiss. They walk out of the elevator, and onto the second floor. After speaking with the team, Betty turns to say goodbye to Jughead, but all she sees is the back of him walking away from her and into his office. With a quiet sigh, she begins walking towards her own office, any hopes of becoming friends with Jughead disappearing with every step.

–

Two weeks later, and two weeks of walking up those dreaded stairs, Betty gives in to what her legs and feet are telling her and decides to take the elevator again. 

She presses the button and waits patiently for it to arrive. It does shortly after, and she walks in, automatically pressing the button for floor two. Someone else walks in next to her, re-pressing the same button. She avoids eye contact, busying herself with her phone, when a familiar voice cuts through the silence. 

“Hey, Betty.” 

She immediately recognizes the voice as Jughead’s. Her eyes snap up to meet his, and she can’t help but think how good he looks today. She curses herself for thinking that, wondering why she’s still so drawn to him, and curses the environment of the elevator for making her feel like this. 

“Jughead,” she says, voice harsh. Her eyes fall back to her phone in an attempt to slow her thoughts. The elevator starts moving and Betty’s never been more pleased to only have to go to floor two. 

She picks an easy level of a stupid flash game, and ignores Jughead’s presence. She flicks her finger across the screen, moving a red gem to line up with three others. It gives her a lot of points, and she feels a small amount of accomplishment, but she can feel Jughead’s stare on her. Forcing herself to not give in, she tries to focus on the level at hand. Luckily, she feels the elevator coming to a stop, so she pockets her phone and gets ready to leave, still avoiding his gaze. 

The doors open, so Betty quickly moves towards it, taking a left outside to head towards her office. She’s just about to let out a sigh of relief when she feels someone gently grab her hand. Quickly turning around, she’s met with the sight of Jughead, his soft hand holding onto hers. She snatches hers back, and raises an eyebrow at him in question. 

“Can I…” He stops, hands flying up to fiddle with his beanie. She can recognize this as a nervous habit, so she softens her eyes slightly. 

“What’s up?” she asks softly. 

He takes a deep breath. “Can I take you for lunch one day?”

Her face immediately breaks out into a massive, uncontrollable smile, all negative thoughts about Jughead leaving her mind. “Yes, yeah, I’d really like that.” _Fuck, Betty, could’ve played it cool._

He grins. “How’s tomorrow?”

“Tomorrow’s great.”

“Perfect, I’ll meet you here at 1?”

“It’s a date,” she says sheepishly, trying to conceal her smile.

As he turns away to walk off to the right, he looks back and calls after her. “Have a great day, Betty!” 

She spends the rest of the day with a smile on her face, making sure she sends a silent _thank you_ to whatever force out there put them in the elevator on that fateful day. 

–

Two months since being stuck in the elevator with Jughead, and six weeks since their first date, Betty and Jughead are now officially dating. They had _the_ conversation last week, and have quickly made a habit of lunchtime dates. Today is no different. Betty meets Jughead outside of the elevator on floor two, and he greets her with a lingering kiss. As the weather is warm at the moment, Betty texted Jughead last night to tell him she’d made them lunch so they can go to a park for lunch instead of their usual restaurant. 

So, hands clasped together, they head to a local park, about a ten minute walk from their building. They sit on a bench in the sun and she hands him his lunch of pasta salad. They eat while chatting about their days so far and their plans for the weekend, Betty getting excited for a surprise Jughead has planned for her on Saturday. 

All in all, it’s a nice lunch break. Time spent with Jughead is always nice, Betty finds. With fifteen minutes to spare, they walk back to their office and wait for the elevator, both even more unlikely to use the stairs now they have each other as company. The doors open, and Jughead takes Betty’s hand to lead her in. The small gesture makes her smile, feeling herself fall for him more and more. She stands in the corner, leaning on the wall of the elevator. As she moves her spare hand towards the _floor two_ button, he brings his own hand towards it, stopping hers in its track, and presses the top button, _floor eleven._

“Whoops,” he says with a smirk.

She shakes her head laughing, sending him an eye roll filled with affection. He steps towards her, trapping her in the corner. She brings her hand up to play with the collar of his shirt, something she knows drives him crazy. As expected, he leans down and gently brushes his lips over hers, but doesn’t kiss her yet. She sighs in frustration, and he _finally_ gives in, pressing his lips to hers in a kiss far too passionate for a workplace elevator. Neither of them care, though, as it continues moving them upwards, far past their floor. 

They continue kissing messily, both acutely unaware of the elevator coming to a stop on floor ten. Neither notice when the door opens and a ginger haired man with a guitar stands staring at them. The man awkwardly clears his throat, making both Betty and Jughead jump apart. Betty is mortified, face going bright red, while Jughead grabs her hand and pulls her out of the elevator, past the man, and towards the stairwell. 

“Better use the stairs from now on,” he giggles, kissing her again before they walk down the stairs hand in hand, spring in their steps. 

_~fin_

**Author's Note:**

> thank you so much for reading. comments and kudos are, as always, very much appreciated, so thank you to anyone who leaves them. i hope you liked this fic!


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